The spicy smell of cedar

Miguel and Jess are constructing the privacy walls on both the upper and lower decks. These are comprised of cedar over a pressure-treated infrastructure. After a lot of ruminating, the concept Steve, Matt and I agreed on was a horizontal “good neighbor” fence.

Below it, Matt and I are installing cedar deck skirting. The idea of off-the-shelf lattice wasn’t cutting it for us, so we ordered one-by-eights of cedar from Corey at 84 Lumber and are attaching the boards horizontally, with gaps of about an inch. The house is starting to look anchored to the ground.

With all the recent rain, this lumber is perfuming the air and making us all the more anxious to get to a point where we can install our cedar hot tub, which I optimistically ordered in February.

Renovation tip: Save time by creating a drilling jig that eliminates the need to measure over and over and over and ensures all the screws line up attractively.

On November 7, we blew past the tentative completion date for the project. For me, this was a non-surprising non-event; I had placed little faith in this date. Nonetheless, there is progress:

• Joe installed the all-important operable Velux® Manual Venting skylight in the upstairs bathroom on November 10. Like all our windows, it is Energy Star rated.



• The roofing materials arrived on Tuesday, November 4—at the neighbor’s parking area. (I brought over a nice bottle of apology wine.) The next day, Matt spent some time on the roof, seeing how Joe installs it. (Then the rotted side wall in the great room—the reconstructed exterior is shown below—diverted the crew). The Advantage-Lok® Standing Seam roofing in unpainted Galvalume® now covers about 80 percent of the house. Our Energy Star-rated roof has a Total Solar Reflectance (TSR) of 68%—the highest offered in this product line—and it gleams in moonlight and disappears in the fog.



• The Therma-Tru® sliding glass door was installed in our bedroom on November 5. It still doesn’t open or close easily enough, but at least the non-functioning, code-violating bay window is gone. (So is the one in the kitchen.)



• My front door, Daisy Allendale by Crestview, was ordered in April, arrived in June and on November 15, Joe made it swing true and added the door hardware from 84 Lumber.



• The stucco process began on November 7; finally, after a lot of begging, we got our color and texture choices on November 14. The stucco crew has been leaving the area disarray. We have cleaned up after them too often. Today Matt sent a note to Alex and Steve entitled, “Weekly email about trash and deck protection,” that said in part: “If they can’t respect our property, then they need to be replaced.”



• We passed our structural inspection on November 12.



• We passed our rough electrical inspection on November 14.